How can we escape stagnation and speed up progress? What if bubbles are literally good? Simply asking questions.
“They promised us flying vehicles. All we bought was 100 forty characters.” These had been the words of Peter Thiel over a decade in the past, lamenting technological stagnation. The character restrict has since elevated, however his level stays the identical: Innovation within the software program world of “bits” has accelerated, however progress within the materials world of “atoms” has been stubbornly gradual, a minimum of in his telling.
Economist Tyler Cowen, who popularized the time period “Great Stagnation,” argued that we picked all of the low-hanging fruit within the early-to-mid twentieth century due to low cost cultivation of unused land, mass training of a beforehand uneducated inhabitants, and revolutions in transportation, power, and artificial supplies that might since be solely marginally improved at more and more higher expense and energy. The outcome has been stagnant wage progress when accounting for value inflation and a failure to appreciate any revolutionary breakthroughs in power, transportation, or supplies science for many years.
However at this time’s visitor says there’s one other underlying motive for the stagnation: a self-defeating cultural and religious malaise and pessimism concerning the future. It manifests itself within the dystopian films and exhibits that dominate Hollywood, in addition to in the falling prevalence of phrases related to progress and the long run, and an increase of phrases related to warning, fear, and danger present in up to date literature.
Byrne Hobart is the co-author of Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation, which affords a stunning manner out of stagnation: embracing the dynamic and chaotic energy of bubbles—funding bubbles, large social bubbles, and filter bubbles. Examples vary from large, bold public investments just like the Apollo missions and the Manhattan Undertaking to the rise of bitcoin.
Sources referenced:
- The Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen
- Federal Reserve Financial institution of Atlanta: “Real Wage Growth: A View from the Wage Growth Tracker”
- Monetary Occasions: “Is the west talking itself into decline?”
- Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation, by Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber
- Zach and Liz’s Bitcoin documentary
- “Bitcoin’s Price History”
- Federal Reserve Financial institution of St. Louis: “The Pandemic’s Influence on U.S. Fertility Rates”
- Federal debt held by the public
- Federal debt held by the public as a percent of Gross Domestic Product
- U.S. Treasury: The U.S. government has spent $1.25 trillion in fiscal year 2025
- Moore’s Law
Chapters
- 00:00 Arising…
- 00:17 Introduction
- 02:46 How in style language factors to cultural malaise
- 07:30 can we even have technological stagnation?
- 09:31 Monetary bubbles are good, truly?
- 15:43 FOMO is sweet
- 18:00 When are bubbles dangerous?
- 21:13 Bretton Woods
- 25:05 There are productive and unproductive bubbles
- 28:10 Is Bitcoin a bubble?
- 40:05 Social bubbles
- 47:17 Is society getting extra danger averse?
- 53:53 Faith and technological innovation
- 01:06:01 Natalism
- 01:11:11 how can we make progress cool and attention-grabbing and related once more?
- 01:14:58 what’s one query that you simply assume extra individuals needs to be asking?
- Producer: John Osterhoudt
The submit Byrne Hobart: What occurred to progress? appeared first on Cause.com.
